29.6.12

Newspaper
headlines suggested today that Ronnie O’Sullivan was planning a breakaway
tour but these were misleading. He isn’t.

What
O’Sullivan wants is a series of tournaments featuring hand-picked players he
thinks the public would like to see.

He wants these to run alongside existing World Snooker tournaments, although with the tournament calendar now so packed it would be hard to see how clashes could be avoided.

Not
all the quotes made it into the original stories but I have been given access
to them.

This
is what O’Sullivan said:

“Other
players like John Higgins and Mark Williams may feel the same as me soon. Get
them with maybe Stephen Hendry, Ding Junhui, Neil Robertson and Judd Trump and
you have a show.

“These
are the players people want to see, the rest like Ali Carter are making up the
numbers.

“I
don’t see myself as in competition with World Snooker, they have big
tournaments, but if I’m not in main events I need to do other stuff.

“Stephen
Hendry retired for similar reasons, a year down the line who knows who might be
up for it.

“People
switch on the TV to watch certain players, like with John McEnroe in tennis.
They know the characters, know the person, are excited by what they do and
waiting for something to happen.

“I
am not the only one who feels this way, I am the only one who has had the balls
to say it. I believe there is another way, and I can open a door for other
players.

“They
could be fantastic, proper tournaments. Only eight players would have the status
that bring something to that, that the public would pay to see, that I would
pay to see.

“I
think seven or eight now on tour would be interested in that concept.”

O’Sullivan
is right that there are a handful of star names that draw the crowds. This is
true of any sport.

But
the danger is that a slew of tournaments featuring a small number of players
would soon become a bore.

Without
a ranking system or joined-up structure underpinning them they would just look
like a series of exhibitions, although this is not to say they wouldn't attract the paying public.

An exhibition featuring Ronnie against, say, Jimmy White is a good night out and the Snooker Legends organisers have made a success of their events, of which these two crowd-pleasers are a part.

I
can fully understand why O'Sullivan's idea would appeal to players: well paid events for
little real pressure.

But
would the public really take to them?

World
Snooker chairman Barry Hearn was distinctly unimpressed. He said: “Ronnie is
looking for something to do and tour players are not allowed to play in
unsanctioned events. We won’t sanction anything counter-productive to us.

“Tour
players playing in events set up by Ronnie is a non-starter. I expect him to
support the game that made him a world champion, not undermine it.

“He’s
a great player and we want him on tour, but there would be zero tolerance for
him or others joining him on this kind of thing. I am talking heavy sanctions.”

On
the face of it this isn’t very constructive. Why not work together?

But
neither of these big characters seems willing to back down now. In fact, the O’Sullivan
v Hearn turf war is developing into a rather tedious clash of egos.

If
O’Sullivan feels the players’ contract is too restrictive then he has every
right not to sign it. However, World Snooker sources are adamant he asked for
appearance money, which they flatly refused to pay.

O’Sullivan
can beat anyone on the snooker table but he won’t beat Hearn off it. He has
various people in his ear telling him he’s worth more than everyone else but
all they have done is left him without playing opportunities and, therefore,
financially poorer.

Ironically,
he seemed to be at his happiest early in his career when he was managed by,
yes, Barry Hearn.

This
latest plan will probably fall flat too. World Snooker won’t sanction
tournaments that clash with their own and the other players won’t risk
disciplinary action by competing in rival events.

I
was there in the thick of the TSN breakaway tour and all that it ultimately did
was damaged snooker and seriously depleted not only its reputation but also its
cash reserves.

However,
if O’Sullivan can bring new events to the table then World Snooker should not
withhold a sanction just because he doesn’t want to enter all of their
tournaments.

One
thing worth mentioning in closing: there already is an event which features the
game’s biggest names playing a series of matches for big money.

It’s
called the Premier League and O’Sullivan has opted not to play in it despite
winning it ten times, including all but one time under the shot clock rules.

Had
he won it this year it would have been worth around £80,000 to him. It’s an
event he genuinely enjoys and I think it’s one he’ll miss when it starts in
August.

Perhaps the real test of this long running saga is the extent to which it misses him.

27.6.12

Judd
Trump has enjoyed himself since exiting the World Championship in a
disappointing fashion, losing 13-12 from 12-9 up to Ali Carter.

Trump
has holidayed in Las Vegas and Dubai, spending some of the money he won during
a busy and productive season.

And
he should take time to have fun. The worst thing he could have done was got
back on the practice table a week or so after losing to Carter. The defeat
would have been fresh in his mind.

He
needed to get away from the snooker table.

Well,
now he’s back and against Dominic Dale in the Wuxi Classic today was superb.
Back-to-back centuries followed by a 75 clearance launched by an audacious long
red made it 3-1 and he didn’t take long to wrap things up after the interval.

Trump
starts the new season second in the world rankings. Mark Selby’s consistency is
such that he will be hard to overhaul at the top of the list but it’s a long
campaign with many titles to contest.

The
biblical parable of Samson losing his hair and thus his power did not apply for
Trump.

He may be shorn of a
few locks but he avoided becoming another seeded scalp.

26.6.12

World
Snooker this evening issued a statement so coded I wondered at first if it was
to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth.

As
with so many things, it is really all about Ronnie O’Sullivan, even though he
isn’t mentioned anywhere.

O’Sullivan
apparently wrote on Weibo (a sort of Chinese twitter) that he would like to
play at the Shanghai Masters as a wildcard.

World
Snooker responded: “World Snooker allows for
wild cards in certain events outside of the UK in order to give local players
opportunity and experience in world class events and to develop talent in
important markets. Wild cards are only available to amateur players from the host
country or region, and they are selected in conjunction with World Snooker, the
WPBSA, the National Governing Body and the Promoter of the event.”

In short, O’Sullivan will not be a wildcard for the Shanghai Masters.
Did anyone genuinely think he would be? It would have been an absurd situation.

Speaking
of absurd, I was always told that wildcards were a strictly commercial idea,
designed to attract money and interest locally. The World Snooker statement
somewhat contradicts this.

In
my opinion – and I’m sure many players would agree – wildcards should not be
used to provide training opportunities for amateurs. They should be to produce
a commercial gain for snooker. If there is no commercial gain, they should be
scrapped.

Here
is the answer to what has been gained commercially from the wildcards this week:
nothing.

The
crowds have been miniscule for wildcard matches, compared to the legions who
turned out to watch Ding Junhui (and went home disappointed).

It
is an outrage that Ali Carter, who just last month reached the World
Championship final, was shunted round the back out of range of the TV cameras
so that Zhou Yuelong could play Michael White on TV.

This
is nothing against Zhou, a fine prospect at just 14. I thought his century
break was marvellous and a clear sign of his potential.

But
world ranking events should not be used to train Chinese players. Qualifiers
have sweated blood to get through to China and are being penalised by having to
play talented wildcards under far less pressure for no additional financial
reward.

All
this in an era we are told is supposed to be a meritocracy.

The
problem is one of precedent. World Snooker was so badly run in the past that
when the China Open returned to the schedule in 2005, the only way it could be
paid for was to agree to wildcards.

The
Chinese wanted 16. They got 16. World Snooker has since got them down to eight.

Now
that the tournaments are financially underwritten by the Chinese, they can
continue to call the shots.

But
there is no evidence the Chinese public is interested in these matches so their
worth to the tournament surely now has to be questioned.

As
for O’Sullivan, he once again raised the prospect of appearance money, payable
by local promoters to players such as himself.

As
I’ve said before, I would have no problem with this. An independent promoter
should be free to pay any player whatever he wants to play in his own
tournament, as happens in sports such as tennis and golf.

World
Snooker, however, were correct to turn down O’Sullivan’s request for appearance
money. A governing body should treat all players equally.

Ding Junhui is the standard bearer of the Chinese snooker revolution but the Wuxi Classic will be an especially special tournament for him.In the vast land that is China, Ding hails from Wuxi. The invitation tournament was originated because of him.This by no means guarantees him victory today against Mark Davis, though. Ding has at times seemed to feel the pressure of home expectation, losing to players he would normally be expected to dispatch.

Or is this merely Ding all over? He does seem to be among the more inconsistent of the star names.

Last season he played very well to win the Welsh Open (leaving aside the fact Stephen Lee may have beaten him but for that untimely mobile phone) but had just a semi-final and quarter-final to show from the rest of the ranking events.

Like most players he had other things going on. He bought a house in Sheffield. He was unwell at the World Open.

Nevertheless, few would have predicted his collapse from 9-6 up to Ryan Day at the Crucible.

Afterwards he was livid, hitting out at the crowd and swearing, for which he was fined.

Perhaps it was also a reaction to a campaign more disappointing than some of those he had previously enjoyed.

Well, it's a new season and thus a new start. But Neil Robertson is already out and top 16 players coming in cold can be expected to be a little rusty.

Ding got lucky against Mark Davis at last season's UK Championship, fluking the pink out of a snooker in the decider. The next time they played, at the Welsh, he ran through him in under an hour.

His hometown supporters will be hoping for similar today. But experience will tell them that Ding is a difficult player to predict.

23.6.12

If
it’s the first day of Wimbledon it must be the start of the ranking tournament
season.

Three
years ago that would have been unthinkable. But the Wuxi Classic, one of five
ranking events staged in China this season, starts in Wuxi City on Monday.

There
are a few absentees. Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins haven’t entered while
Matthew Stevens has withdrawn citing a back injury.

This
is the first tournament I can ever remember Stevens pulling out of. It’s bad
news for him but, inevitably, good news for Joe Perry, who he was due to play.

It
doubtless seems like an early start for some top players but if they’d ever had
jobs other than playing snooker they’d know that seven weeks – which it has
been since the world final – is a holiday period unheard of in most professions.

There
is a £75,000 top prize on offer, plus ever valuable ranking points.

I
don’t know who will win the title but I suspect it will be someone who has been
practising properly, though it is also true to say that some players need to
practise more than others.

The
qualifiers may, for once, be at an advantage because they have at least had
competitive outings whereas most of the top 16 are coming in cold.

That
said, some of the elite band have played in the first Asian PTC, won by Stuart
Bingham, who will obviously be full of confidence.

Mark
Selby, as world no.1, is the top seed. He plays Barry Hawkins, who beat him
10-3 in the first round at the Crucible.

But
Selby was unable to play properly in this match due to his neck injury, which
he says has “90% cleared up.”

I’m
pleased to hear this but you don’t want to play professional snooker with even
10% pain in your neck.

There
have been a number of players to suffer from neck/back/shoulder problems over
the years and they always tend to be the hard practisers and players who play
in everything.

Selby,
though, is pretty tough and clearly determined not to allow his condition to
force him out of any more tournaments.

On
the face of it, there’s no reason to believe the main titles won’t be shared around
again between the same faces who have won them for the past few years.

It
would be nice to see a few new winners, too, but almost all of the qualifiers are
vastly experienced campaigners.

The
one exception is Michael White, who has qualified for the final stages of a
ranking event for the first time in his career.

White
won the world amateur title – or a version of it after it was rescheduled from
earthquake-hit Pakistan to Wales – when he was just 14. He is now 20 and a
rising star in the pro ranks.

He’s
a good friend of Jamie Jones, who so impressed at the end of last season. They
both come from Wales, a place with a proud snooker tradition, and are of the
right age to grasp the proliferation of opportunities in this new era.

Eurosport’s
coverage of the Wuxi Classic starts at 7.30am BST on Monday.

22.6.12

Stuart
Bingham is the player who perhaps best exemplifies the ‘have cue, will travel’
attitude.

All
throughout his career, he has actively sought out snooker at any level to play
in. If there was a pro-am on, Bingham would be there and would invariably be
the winner. No tournament is beneath him: it’s the same game after all.

So
here we are not yet even into July and Bingham has won two titles this season:
first the large Pink Ribbon pro-am in Gloucester and today the first Asian PTC
in Zhangjiagang, China.

Bingham
defeated Stephen Lee 4-3 in the final. The event was dominated by Chinese
players but the latter stages were mainly contested by professionals.

These
ranking points could be very important at the next cut-off. Bingham began the
season 16th on the ranking list and 14th in the
projected seedings.

His
love of playing and preparedness to go wherever he needs to is admirable.
Stuart is one of snooker’s genuine good guys and all the success he has had he
has earned the hard way.

So
what, you may argue. The money is there to be earned by players who do well.
Sport isn’t a charity. Snooker’s pay structure is similar to other sports.

All
valid points, but so is the assertion that there is a serious divide between
the haves and have-nots in snooker.

Take
the Q School. This costs £1,000 to enter but players who get through (who have
their money returned) have to win two matches in most events to earn any money
at all. In last week’s Australian Open it was three matches.

Remember,
they have already had to pay entry fees and their expenses for travelling to
and staying in Sheffield.

The
other arguable inequity is the relative amount of effort required to earn money
from the professional game.

Rod
Lawler played 11 matches before securing his tour card. He has since played
seven matches in the first two events and qualified for the Wuxi Classic, where
he is guaranteed £6,000.

This
is the same guarantee as a top 16 player who is coming in for his first match.
With this system of guarantees it would take a poor season for a member of the
top 16 not to earn £100,000 as a minimum from the campaign.

Again,
you could argue so what? These players have all started from nothing in round one of the
qualifiers and worked their way up the ranks, got into the elite top 16 by
their performances.

They
have and they deserve their rewards, but are they getting too big a slice of
the overall cake for, in some cases, barely winning a match?

I’m
firmly against what Hearn describes as ‘subsidising mediocrity’ but would argue
that mediocrity is a relative term.Some players are obviously better than others. There
are exceptional players, of course, but lower down the ranks there is still
considerable ability.

If you think any of these players are mediocre then offer to play them for money and see how you get on.

To
be on the circuit is to be the elite. There are many amateur players who have
not made the grade. You have to be something special to survive the cut.

Is
it really too much to ask to give the players some prize money earlier in
tournaments – even if it’s just enough to cover expenses?

This
would involve cutting the cake a little (not by fortunes) at the top level but surely
money at all levels of the tour should be earned by winning matches rather than merely turning up.

There’s
enough pressure as it is playing snooker for a living without having to think
about the financial burden too.

I’m
not talking handouts. But in the PTCs if you win a match you get money. Why not
in ranking events?

I
think top prizes should be big because they are headline figures: literally,
they attract headlines. They also reward the considerable achievement of
winning a tournament.

But
many players are in danger of being priced out of the game. They will be
replaced but only by players who face the same financial challenges.

This
is a particular problem for young players. The last thing we want is new talent
unable to afford playing.

The
argument against is that it is merely propping up players who do not add
anything commercially to snooker. We all know who the stars are, the wealth
creators who bring in broadcasters and sponsors.

But
I think that’s a rather sorry way to look at it, not least because matches are
now being streamed on the internet. Money is being made on these matches by
bookmakers and others – but in some cases not the players themselves.

Can
that really be right?

One
of the main problems is the labyrinthine qualifying structure. I’m still
sceptical as to whether Hearn’s stated aim of having everyone start from round
one will ever happen, but it could be the key to what many would see as a
fairer pay structure.

Because
though it’s true that prize money has dramatically increased in snooker in
recent times, it’s equally true that many are missing out.

In
this way, snooker of course mirrors wider society. But the difference is we
have the chance to do something about it.

18.6.12

In
the 1970s there was Ray Reardon, in the 1980s there was Steve Davis and in the
1990s there was Stephen Hendry.

In
seasons since, John Higgins, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams have all had
spells of dominance but will snooker ever again have a figure who wins the lion’s
share of major titles over a prolonged period of time?

Well,
forever is a long time. But how about the next few years?

Mark
Selby is the world no.1 but he isn’t the game's dominant player in the tradition of Reardon, Davis and Hendry.

O’Sullivan
is world champion but, although he dominates the headlines, he didn’t dominate
last season. Nobody did. Several players had their moments. Most of the major
titles were shared around.

Why?
Because there is a core group of around ten players who play snooker to a very
high level and who are all capable of beating each other on the big occasions,
and indeed they do so.

There
is very little between them, even though O’Sullivan is still regarded by many
(including players) as better than the rest at his best.

Stephen
Hendry once won five consecutive ranking titles. This was extraordinary then
but it would be even more so today because Hendry did not have as many players
at the top of the game playing to the sort of standard he was capable of
producing.

Standards
rise all the time in sport and snooker is no different. Through the ranks there
are now more players able to play at a high standard. Often players play
brilliantly and lose early in tournaments.

But
this is by no means the whole story. It isn’t just about ability but also
mindset.

The
reason Davis and Hendry dominated, apart from how they played, was that they
wanted to. They wanted to so much that they made the sacrifices necessary to
dominate.

Few
players since have been as driven as that. Most come from humble, working class
beginnings. When they start earning money in much greater amounts than they would have
thought possible when young they become comfortable. They start to spend their
money and enjoy themselves.

This
is entirely understandable. It is human. Many would feel it a sad state of
affairs if they didn’t.

The
Davis’s and Hendry’s were the players who stopped in on Saturday night because
they wanted to be up early on a Sunday morning to practise. They were the
players who won a tournament and put it out of their minds. They were
relentless in their belief that nothing was ever good enough, that success
could always be bettered.

Higgins
and O’Sullivan have freely admitted they are not made this way, and Williams
doesn’t seem to be either.

If
a player can earn £200,000 a year playing snooker, if they are happy to win a
title or two a year, then they may well wonder why they should change.

Even
with the Davis/Hendry approach there is no guarantee a player could dominate
again, such is the tough opposition out there.

If
it did happen and a player emerged who topped the rankings and won most of the
major prizes, would it be a good thing for snooker?

In
some senses, yes. It would provide a focal point, as Phil Taylor has in darts,
as the man to be shot at.

The
downside, though, is that many people do get bored watching the same player win
everything, as if it takes away the sense of the unexpected.

The
question is, will it happen again?

Well,
if it does then it is going to take one very, very special player.

14.6.12

Perhaps
the most ominous line in the disciplinary verdict on Mark Allen is that he must
attend media training.

I’ll
admit a prejudice here: I’m suspicious of media training.

It
has been prevalent in politics ever since Margaret Thatcher was taught how to
lower her voice to sound more substantial. In modern politics, it seems to exist
to teach politicians how to get around answering difficult questions.

I think the public relate better to people who are their natural selves than polished clones from a PR production line.

Despite
my antipathy to media training, when World Snooker asked if any journalists
were interested in providing this service to players last year I declared an
interest. I wasn't asked but my method would have very simple.

In
my opinion, the best media training you can give a player is to have them spend
time with snooker journalists: to get to know them, to de-mystify the way the
media works and to build up relationships.

I
think this should be a must for all new professionals: spend a day in a press
room somewhere, learning how it all works. There is more to being a pro snooker
player than pitching up with a cue on day one at the qualifiers.

You can teach them various tricks of the media trade but only by developing relationships with the people who will be interviewing them will players relax and be themselves.

During
Sky’s coverage of the England v West Indies Test series there was a very good
set of programmes following young England cricketers in their training. They
had a media day with cricket journalists in which they got to know them,
chatted about themselves and generally broke down the barriers between
sportsman and media.

Because
the only way you will get anything interesting out of a player is through
establishing trust. If the players trust that the journalists will not stitch
them up or misreport them then you get better media coverage because they will
be naturally more open. They will be themselves.

When
I first became a freelance there was a small, established group of regular reporters out on the circuit.
Far from trying to keep me out, they could not have been more welcoming or
helpful.

There
was Clive Everton and Phil Yates, my colleagues on Snooker Scene, John Dee, who
primarily wrote for the Daily Telegraph, and Trevor Baxter, a remarkably
industrious freelance who covered any sport that moved.

Together,
we went to pretty much every tournament. Players would come down to the
pressroom, often just for something to do, and informal relationships would be
formed. It meant when the players came to press conferences they were more
relaxed in our company.

Phil
and Trevor covered the Norbreck qualifiers in the early 1990s. They pretty much
trained Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams in how to deal with
the media through their constant interviews over the course of many weeks.

The
most important thing is for a player to be honest and open within the confines
of remembering their professional responsibilities to the sport itself.

“I’m
obviously disappointed but he played really well and I wish him all the best
for the rest of the tournament,” might sound gracious but it’s of zero interest
to journalists because it doesn’t provide a story.

Many
stories that do get in the newspapers are about arguments and bust-ups but not
all.

I
used to write for a few Scottish papers. The Scots players were all excellent
in providing in interviews something more than just a blow-by-blow account of
how they played.

Stephen
Hendry had done so many interviews that he was a great pro. When he won he spoke
properly and with authority. When he lost he didn’t pretend it didn’t matter.
If he said nothing at all it was a story in itself.

Higgins
often chipped in with some family news or something about Celtic, knowing it
would be helpful to journalists and, as it got him press coverage, helpful to
him too.

Alan
McManus, Stephen Maguire, Graeme Dott: all very honest. Chris Small was straightforward
about the extent of his back condition.

O’Sullivan
has almost always given more than just the basics and Ken Doherty and Steve
Davis are examples of senior players who understand what the press want.

There
are other players who not only don’t understand what the media want but quite
obviously don’t care. These should be given media training before Mark Allen.

Will
the media training make Allen more interesting? I doubt it.

Some
of his comments have got him into trouble but the last thing we want is a succession of identikit players who all sound the same, all have the same
mannerisms, all trot out the same bland phrases.

I think the format - two groups of five - is much better than last year's but O'Sullivan's non-appearance is a blow to this event because he has been so dominant since the shot-clock was introduced. Financially, it's a blow to him too: the winner takes £50,000 plus it's £1,000 a frame.

The number of tournaments on the circuit has grown but the amount played in the UK, the game's traditional home, has reduced, so the Premier League is important for bringing live snooker to places otherwise starved of seeing the world's best players.

12.6.12

Mark
Allen has been fined £10,000, plus £1,000 in costs, by the WPBSA disciplinary
committee for his derogatory comments about Cao Yupeng and Chinese players in
general at last season’s World Championship.

Allen
will be suspended from playing for three months if he breaks any further WPBSA
rules in the next six months.

The
WPBSA statement read:

“The
Disciplinary Committee of the WPBSA has formally considered the case of Mark
Allen in relation to his comments in a press conference on Sunday 22nd April
2012 following his defeat in the Betfred.com World Championship at the Crucible
Theatre in Sheffield. In this conference he accused his opponent Cao Yupeng of
cheating and said that cheating appeared to be a trait of Chinese
players. He named two other Chinese players as being known for cheating.

“This follows on from a previous case where Mark
was fined £1,000 and warned as to his future conduct for comments he made about
China and the Chinese people on twitter.

“The
Disciplinary Committee found that he is in breach of the following members
rules:

“1.1 Members shall, at all times (i.e.
whether at a Tournament or not), behave in a proper and correct manner
consistent with their status as professional sportsmen. Members shall not do
anything which is likely to intimidate, offend, insult, humiliate or
discriminate against any other person on the grounds of disability, their
religion, race, colour or national or ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation.

“1.2 A Member shall not make or cause to
be made any statement or commit or cause to be committed any act which in the
reasonable view of the WPBSA is likely to bring into disrepute the games of
snooker and/or billiards.

“He was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £1,000
towards the cost of the hearing and was suspended from playing for a period of
three months. This suspension will only come into effect if he commits any new
breach of the WPBSA Members Rules that are dealt with by the WPBSA Disciplinary
process in the next six months. He has also been required to undergo media
training.

“The WPBSA Disciplinary Committee consider that
this behaviour is unacceptable and offensive to China and the Chinese players.
Such behaviour will not be tolerated by the WPBSA.”

It
strikes me the fine could have been much heavier for what were unnecessary comments.

It
is true Allen had just lost in the World Championship and was therefore feeling
very disappointed but to suggest cheating is an endemic trait of an entire
nation is unacceptable.

Neither
does the ‘free speech’ defence work. Free speech doesn’t just mean you can say
whatever you like about anyone. It has to be either true or fair comment. Allen’s
remarks were neither.

It’s
a new season and a new start. Allen has already begun it positively by donating
his £800 prize money from the Pink Ribbon pro-am to a breast cancer charity.

He
remains a formidable presence on the table, already with a ranking title under
his belt and more surely to follow.

How
he reacts to this action will be important I think. If he accepts it and gets
on with his career then he may find it is soon forgotten.

If
he acts as if he has been victimised then it will be counter productive. Not
least because it wouldn’t be true.

When
it began in that long forgotten hinterland that was 2006 I was primarily a
journalist, frustrated by the attitude of newspaper sports editors towards
snooker and looking for my own outlet to provide news, some opinions and
hopefully interesting features for snooker fans.

In a media sense, 2006
now seems like a golden age. It’s harder than ever to interest newspapers in
snooker. That’s why most stories that do appear tend to revolve around people
having a go at each other.

I
am now primarily a commentator and salute Hector Nunns, now snooker’s leading
freelance journalist, who does his level best to keep the sport alive in the
newspapers.

Private
Eye editor Ian Hislop said at the seemingly endless Leveson inquiry into press
ethics that “news only becomes news when it appears in the newspapers. On blogs
it’s just noise.”

He
has a point. The main problem with the internet when it comes to information is
the blending of fact and opinion. Indeed, this is only following what has happened for many years in
newspapers.

The
point of journalism is supposed to be to find out as many facts as possible and
then present them to the public.

In
a world of instant communication, facts seem to matter less than having an
immediate opinion.

This
is why on a 24-hour news channel the reporter on the scene often knows no more
than the person in the studio: they haven’t had time to find out what’s going on
because they are stood in front of a camera.

On
the internet too, particularly now Twitter has come along, it’s a world of
instant judgements: a miasma of words, but how many facts?

And
so the media gorges on itself: stories fill newspapers now based on what famous
people have said on Twitter. This is a very cheap form of journalism: you don’t
even have to leave the office or, heaven forbid, talk to anyone. In a similar
way, blogs feed off newspapers and ‘news’ gets recycled.

There
are many snooker blogs, written in the main by dedicated people spending their
own time promoting the sport unpaid. They should be encouraged and congratulated.
Look at the effort Matt at Pro Snooker Blog puts into keeping the seedings list
updated: a vital service much used by the players.

Snookerbacker
even ran a tournament to provide free entry for two players to Q School. One of
them, Martin O’Donnell, not only got through but made a winning start at the
qualifiers last week.

There
are blogs cropping up outside the UK and Living Snooker is a promising new
addition because it carries the thoughts of various players.

But
sponsors want their names in newspapers. They want people not interested in
snooker to notice them. They want the right target markets to notice them.

One
of the problems is that snooker is sneered at by large sections of the media,
including on sports desks, who think their opinions outweigh that of their
readers.

They
ignore it all year and then when the World Championship comes around, because
they have ignored it all year, they don’t know who any of the players are and
so run knocking pieces complaining about the ‘lack of characters.’

The
dominance of football doesn’t help and the amount of paper given over to the
Olympics would fetch Sting out in a cold sweat.

World
Snooker didn’t help the situation by agreeing to an absurd arrangement whereby
the Press Association, the national press agency which sends copy to almost
every newspaper in the country, rewrite worldsnooker.com copy rather than
reporting independently themselves (or by using freelances).

All
this has done is further reduce the amount of coverage in the newspapers. And
the shame of it is that the truly good news of the game’s recent revival under
Barry Hearn is not being told. This in turn makes it more difficult to attract
new sponsors to the sport. We may all know it, but people outside the snooker bubble do not.

What
point am I making? I’ve forgotten now. That’s the thing with blogs. If this
were a newspaper piece I would have been given a set amount of words to get the
message across. On a blog you can ramble on for as long as you like, hoping
your readers haven’t fallen into a catatonic state before getting to the end.

I
actually prefer blogging in between tournaments. Unless something out of the
ordinary happens during an event then I don’t think there’s much to say because
fans have seen it all for themselves.

There
used to be weeks – sometimes months – between tournaments. Now it’s usually a
day or two.

Long
may that continue. I for one am delighted at the way Hearn and his team has
filled up the calendar and taken snooker to new territories and given the sport a boost of confidence and some much needed direction.

Things
aren’t perfect and never will be but they are considerably better than on June
12, 2006 when I first started writing this blog.

10.6.12

Stuart
Bingham began the new season in fine style by winning the annual Pink Ribbon
pro-am at the South West Snooker Academy in Gloucester today.

Bingham,
who defends his Australian Open title in Bendigo next month, won his last three
matches without losing a frame. He had two centuries in beating Mark Allen 4-0
in the semi-finals and another two as he defeated Peter Lines 4-0 in the final.
He receives a cheque for £2,400.

Paul
Mount is a lifelong snooker enthusiast who runs a successful business supplying
equipment to medical facilities. He built the impressive SWSA two years ago and
all four UK PTCs will be held there this season.

It
was a shame, given the nature of this event, that World Snooker ordered Mount
to cease his website’s live internet streaming of play on Saturday.

Here’s
what happened: a player, who had read (and seemingly memorised) his World
Snooker contract, queried whether he would be in breach of it were he to play
in a streamed match.

A
phone call to World Snooker resulted in one of their executives informing Mount
that, to avoid any such breach, the plug would have to be pulled.

I
have spent part of today reading the players’ contract. I can only assume the
problem was in section 3) Obligations of the Player, sub-section b) Commercial,
Promotional and Performance Obligations, point x:

“[A player
shall not] be party to any agreement or arrangement (whether in connection with
a WSL Event or otherwise) which may knowingly conflict with the exercise or
value of any of WSL’s rights to exploit the WSL Events and any elements thereof
by any and all commercial means and in any and all media now known or hereafter
invented.”

In other words,
because of the contract to live stream tournaments and qualifiers, this free
stream creates a conflict.

I’m not a
lawyer and am mindful of how easy it is to criticise things you don’t fully
understand but, if this is the reason, then it seems a little heavy-handed to
me. The weekend’s play in the Pink Ribbon wasn’t clashing with any alternative
snooker available on liveworldsnooker.tv.

Perhaps
Mount should have checked the streaming situation before the event began, but
putting a tournament together from scratch involves so much work that you can
understand how contractual minutiae such as this can be overlooked.

I’m
sure if Mount applies for a sanction to stream the event next year that it will
be granted. There’s no reason not to if it isn’t clashing with a World Snooker
tournament. Mount hasn’t set up a rival World Championship. This is a pro-am
designed to raise money and awareness for breast cancer charities.

Mount’s
team works very hard to put it together. He is a man who has put money into the
game in an era where all the talk seems to be about how much can be taken out
of it.

Furthermore,
the Pink Ribbon is an event which brings out the best in the players. Some who
didn’t even enter still gave money. Some gave their prize money to charity.